Pause and Reflect

The more I travel the world, the more I realise how special London is as a city. I love the beauty of the place. The way that the streets of London carry stories from days gone by. It's easy to picture the horse drawn carriages which used to ride down Park Lane, or to see the darkness in East London's once gang ruled streets. There is a history that lives through every nook and cranny of this city. What really makes this place special, though, is not the history, but the diversity that currently ripples through it. Whichever tube line, bus, or road you walk to get to work in the morning, there are people of all genders, all nationalities, all ethnicities, all sexualities. London is a diversity champion. And I love it. Diversity has become one of those buzz words everyone loves to use these days, but do any of us really think about why it has become an echelon of success? Why is this something companies are constantly seeking? I am fortunate to lead a diverse team. I have men,...

I don't think that I will ever forget the 2015 photograph of 3 year old Alan Kurdi's body laid out across a Turkish beach, following his family's failed attempt to reach European shores from Syria. It is a haunting image of the consequences of desperation to reach a better life. More recently, it has been difficult to watch some of the emotionally charged videos of children being reunited with their parents on the American border, after their families were torn apart when they illegally entered the United States. The immigration debate is in full force across the Western world. In Europe, Italy's new, right-leaning government are the first to close their shores to migrant ships. In the US, the debate that started with the deportation of Dreamers has since turned into the morality of detention centres, filled with Latin American children caged and crying out for their parents. Whichever way you slice it, it is hard to recognise this world in which we now live. Once...

I have always known my path in life. I have always known that I would study hard, go to university, get a good job, meet someone, and have a family by the time I was 30. Life was going to be easy for me because I knew exactly where I wanted to go and how I was going to get there. Well, that's what I always thought anyway. Everyday I continue to learn something new about myself and the world. It's obvious to me now that life isn't as easy as my younger-self had naively thought. No matter who I am, or what I have done, there will be both easy times and hard. There will be both laughter and sadness. And ultimately, any plan that I have for myself is unlikely to unfold exactly how I envisaged it. Experiencing life's difficulties can be scary and unnerving, and it has taken me a lot of time to see the positive side of difficulty. We all remember those older family members telling us that we'll learn a lot about life and ourselves as we grow, but it's hard to really...